An addition to your home can be troublesome. Building department staff really just try to do their jobs and be helpful, but sometimes that leads to conflicts between what you want and what is possible. Trying to do things both right and cheaply, this man asked me to come out […] Read more »

I think most of us city dwellers have fantasized about living on a houseboat.  It is a scarce and limited resource, and strictly controlled by the Seattle ordinances.  I have been lucky enough to experience living aboard one, if only briefly.  I (and CSES) have also been involved in the […] Read more »

Some of you bloggers out there may live in a house built during the 1950s to 1970s. A few of those houses have an ugly, awful gigantic brick masonry fireplace, that probably dominates your main living space, and makes any kind of decorating difficult. This was a fad that I […] Read more »

Some of you may think we engineers lead lives of danger and excitement, similar to race car drivers or ace pilots. Well, in reality, there are times when we have really boring tasks to attend to, in addition to the adrenalin charged excitement of our normal day to day work. […] Read more »

The owners of this tiny place wanted more room, but were not sure if their existing foundation would support a second story. In fact, the existing foundation was too small to accommodate that. CSES designed an addition which avoided over-stressing this older foundation, and so these folks will get their […] Read more »